


Separately Together

by Fictropes



Series: 25 fics advent [10]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: 0hhh someon estop me from reading richard siken, 2009, Established Relationship, Introspection, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:28:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27904474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fictropes/pseuds/Fictropes
Summary: Phil’s soft hands and even softer words. It gets harder to leave. Gets to the point where Dan turns off an alarm just so he misses the train.
Relationships: Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Series: 25 fics advent [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2022262
Comments: 31
Kudos: 80





	Separately Together

**Author's Note:**

> as the tag said NO MORE RICHARd SIKEN POEMS FOR ME.

Dan thinks it’s love. He really wants it to be love. 

He wants this sense of relief that he’s found someone to be real— to last. He wants to wake up every morning and know that there’s at least one person who knows the bones of him, loves him despite that. 

He thinks it’s real, thinks the way thatPhil holds him—looks at him, says _I love you_ back— has got to make it so. And for once he wants to be friends with his own brain when it speaks to him, when it tells him Phil means it all. He wants to sit down with his own thoughts and say sorry, wants to shake hands with his own mind and ask to start over. 

This might be his starting over, might be his new— might be a chance at something more than a lifetime of fighting with his own being. Phil shouldn't be his be all and end all, and he’s really trying to make it so that he doesn’t fall apart the moment he can’t see him. It’s hard to tell himself to behave, though, when all he wants is to sit on the sofa with the man who loves him. 

Trying to force himself back home to a place where that love doesn’t exist gets harder every time, and he’s still really trying to stop Phil from being his everything— doesn’t want to pin that on him, doesn’t want to hand over that responsibility. But then Phil will look at him in a way that says I can handle it, that for a little while I can try and hold the weight of the both of us. 

Dan lets him, just for that promised little while. Hands over everything he is without a second thought— trusts Phil to hold onto it gently. And it soothes something inside him, that part of him that had always been longing for someone to just take care of him, to tell him what to do so he doesn’t have to think. 

Phil’s soft hands and even softer words. It gets harder to leave. Gets to the point where Dan turns off an alarm just so he misses the train. 

He knows it’s love when Phil books a new ticket for too far ahead, wraps around him in a way that feels possessive— like he’s trying to make a home for himself in Dan’s skin. The feeling of something being mutual is almost alien to Dan, unless you count the bad ones—the people that hated him just as much as he hated himself. 

This is the return of something _good_ , of something that makes him feel more alive than he ever remembers being. He clings onto it with all he is, tries to swallow it whole so it lives inside him— so it can’t ever escape. He doesn’t think Phil will ever try to take it back, though, will let Dan keep it for as long as he wants. 

Dan almost feels selfish for taking it,this is the sort of love that everyone should feel— but this specific love is his, and he can’t make himself give it up. So when Phil turns over and gets so close that he can count his individual heartbeats, Dan just decides to focus on how he _might_ deserve it. That after everything, love is his reward, and if he focuses on that he doesn’t feel quite as bad. 

Phil gives him back himself one day, when he thinks Dan is ready to hold himself up again— can take all that being him entails. It’s an odd handover, stood in a bedroom that doesn’t belong to him but may as well—spends enough time here, physically and in his imagination. He takes it back with willing hands, with more acceptance than he had when he gave it away. 

He’s himself more so than before, himself with all the parts he’d been so ready to ignore previously— himself but with emotions that he never knew could exist. Phil looks proud—or something—like he knew today was the right time, that Dan could handle being loved. 

Because that’s what this has always been about. Love. Love that Dan desperately craved but didn’t know he could have— or could have but didn’t know what to do with it. Now he thinks he’s ready for it, now he thinks he properly knows what to with all Phil is willing to give.

He’s still trying really hard to not make Phil the centre of his world, but it’s a bit hard when he has his own fucking gravitational pull— when Dan’s been orbiting since what feels like 2008. 

He tries, though. To claw himself into a world of his own, a world that’s just as big as what Phil feels like— he wants to be two planets that co-exist. He wants to be his own person, but he _wants_ to be Phil’s person. 

And he thinks they’ll figure it all out, that they’ve got a lot of time to create a system in which they’re separately together. For now he’ll crawl a little bit deeper into Phil, for now he’ll let himself bask in what he’s never had before. For now Phil is happy to hold his hand a little too tightly, to say I love you even when the moment doesn’t call for it. 

Today they’ll just start where they are. 

**Author's Note:**

> [if u wanna reblog on tumblr! I always appreciate it :) ](https://fictropes.tumblr.com/post/636709577364226048/separately-together-complete-905-phils-soft)
> 
> as alwaaays lemme know ur thoughts ;_; your comments really brighten my day ;_;


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